Plane set-Imperial Airways 1930s: any interest?

[Mike Flight]

Hi All,

An introduction, as I registered on what I have recorded as BRITSIM last year, could not find the website, and I guess it has been integrated into CBFS while my gaze has been elsewhere as my login procedure has landed my on this aerodrome. I am a long-addicted MSFS user - since '96 - and I have been developing sceneries and support tools for a decade or so: a pastime that has locked me into FS9, and the sceneries now have my FS referred to at home as the grown-up's train-set: or 'plane-set.'

I have been developing airport and flying boat base models to support replication of Imperial Airways UK-South Africa services, have stretched into North Atlantic ops - as GPS is sacrilege to me navigation gets tough there - and I am embarking on modelling the Far East - Australia enroute and destination locations. Never sure of whether sharing is going to be as easy as I would like it to be, but UK-orinentated aviators perhaps the best with whom such a newcomer to the scene should share things.

Any interest from anyone - I am happy to post screenshots and scenery files if they are of interest.

As long an introduction as I can justify: looking forward to any responses.

Kind regards
Mike Hirst

[DaveG]

Hi Mike, and welcome.

CBFS and Britsim were 2 separate websites, albeit with a similar interest. Britsim had many issues with hackers and is no more.

I'm sure there will be many here who will be interested in your work, so post some screenshots and lets take a look.

[blanston12]

Don't have much in the way of flying boat ops in CBFS yet, would be an interesting addition. What models do you like to use in this.

[Mike Flight]

Hi Dave,

Don't know how CBFS got my e-mail address .. but stranger things have happened! I had an inkling that hackers has shut Britsim - rather sad really.

I will gather some screen shots together - and delighted at interest expressed so quickly.

Regards
Mike

[Mike Flight]

Hi Joe,

I have tended to use Jens Kristensen's Short S17 and S23, and for Boeing 314 I use Mike Stone's model - it has plenty of wrinkles, but the payware model (PILOTS) is a tad too over the top for me: simple things like a engine control that is impossible to use without having a genuine 4-lever system, and a camouflage scheme that shines is hardly a military finish. It's performance is spot on however: tweak the mixture the wrong way and the engine is soon smoking.

Mike's model will accelerate to the best part of 100kts beyond what is the real aircraft VNE, but in normal flight conditions the handling is fair: but fuel burn is a headache. I try to respect freeware air and cfg files - but I have to make this an exception. I have created textures too for the three UK-registered aircraft ' Berwick', 'Britol' and 'Bangor' and one of PAA 'Yankee Clipper' - the one that is replicated at Foynes.

UK bases I have modelled are ; Shorts factory (Rochester), Hythe and Poole. I have a model too of Plymouth and Stranraer (town - not RAF base on the loch). Looking at Pembroke currently. Overall I have about 40 bases modelled across Europe, North Atlantic (US, Canada and Bermuda) and Africa.

I am experimenting curently with using NDB as a crdue replication of Morse-based RDF. Bermuda had a unique short wave NDB - no way of replication that without greater skills than I possess: but in a forum such as this I wonder if their is the expertise to assist in negotiating such hurdles.

Regards
Mike

[adysmith]

have stretched into North Atlantic ops - as GPS is sacrilege to me navigation gets tough there

If I have a dig I have a text file somewhere which describes how to replicate astral navigation in MSFS.

[blanston12]

Very high on my wish list is a good B314 for FSX/P3D but the only one available is mike stones, which is very simplistic, has no VC and does not show well in FSX. The only known payware is the pilot's version you mentioned but pre-dates FS2004 and is no longer available. I have read that one of the reasons nobody makes a payware version is that none of the aircraft survive and there are no pilots alive who can relate the experience of flying it. There is the mockup that the Irish museum built to use that could be used as a reference for visuals, but alas, nobody has done so yet.

[Mike Flight]

Hi Adrian,

I have 'evolved' a technique for astro-nav, which does use the FS/GPS coordinates - and as that is a 'cheat' I am only partly satisfied with it. If you refer to the Russian sextant-model based system, I have tried to use that, and managed to get lost o'er the ocean. It is very complicated - but then so was the technique for converting a sextant measurement into a position fix. Anything diferent would be wonderful to see,

I met a former navigator, Bob Chandler, in my youth (he flew as a navigator 1930 to 1955: started on HP42 et al and ended up on the Comet1) and I recall a memorable comment from him ;"never ask a navigator 'where are we?'' because he hasn't a clue. He knew where you were at the last fix and will know roughly where you are heading." Trying trans-Atlantic navigation revived that very vividly! He was a humorous man - his memoirs "Off the Beam" published in late-60s, are filled with great flying yarns.

Mike

[Mike Flight]

Joe/and moderator,

You sum up the problems of older aircraft models in your comments: we do have to model them from information sources that are sketchy to say the least, and I doubt we will be able to do much better without some astonishing data sources coming to light. I keep searching - e.g.: found engine performance charts for Short S23 engines last month ...yippee!

I promised some screenshots - moderator assistance needed perhaps - the Img button seems to ask for a web address: I have no idea how to get images in my files into a format that has a http// address. Even if the answer is so simple that you have to tell me it is obvious that I do ...(1)... (2) ...etc. I will be more than just grateful!

Mike

[DaveG]

Hi Mike,
To post screenshots you'll need to upload your pictures to a picture hosting site, or your own web space if you have any, then use the web address of the uploaded picture in the [img] tags.
I can't personally recommend any hosting sites as I use my own space, but others here may be able to recommend some.